Researchers handed media a flawed paper, but forbid any consulting of experts.

Very little of the public gets their information directly from scientists or the publications they write. Instead, most of us rely on accounts in the media, which means reporters play a key role in highlighting and filtering science for the public. And—through embargoed material, press releases, and personal appeals—journals and institutions vie for press attention as a route to capturing the public's imagination.

This system doesn't always work smoothly. Just this year, we've seen a university promote a crazed theory of everything and researchers and journals combine to rewrite the history of science in order to promote their new results. But these unfortunate events are relatively minor compared to a completely cynical manipulation of the press that happened last week.

In this case, the offenders appear to be the scientists themselves. After getting a study published that raised questions about the safety of genetically modified food (GMOs), the researchers provided advanced copies to the press only if they signed an agreement that meant they could not consult outside experts. A live press conference and the first wave of press appeared before outside experts could weigh in—and many of them found the study to be seriously flawed.

Science journalism and the embargo system

Each week, reporters around the world get a jump on the scientific community. Nearly a week before the new editions of major journals are released, the press gets a chance to download many of the papers that will appear within them. That access is predicated on a simple agreement: nobody runs any news stories about the contents until after a date and time set by the journal. This embargo system is why key scientific findings tend to appear everywhere at the same time, with hundreds of similar stories published within minutes of each other.

When it works well, the embargo system provides a valuable sanity check on media hype. While preparing their stories, reporters are allowed to share the papers with relevant experts and scientists with contrary opinions, who can warn the public about the possibility of over-interpretations or shaky data (provided they, too, agree not to publicize the results early).

This system has its flaws—embargoes can be capricious or get broken, and the sources can be selective about who they allow to access the papers. But it can provide what's essentially an additional level of peer review before the results are set out before the public.

Manipulating the system

The important checks provided by that system have now been systematically undermined by a group of French researchers, primarily at the University of Caen. The researchers managed to get a paper published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. Their paper examined the long-term viability of rats fed a diet supplemented with either the herbicide Roundup or a crop engineered to tolerate high levels of Roundup. In their study, the researchers claim to have found that both the pesticide and the GMO crop reduced the lifespan of the rats and caused a high incidence of tumors.

People with relevant expertise, when given a chance to look at the study, found significant and systematic flaws with both the experimental approach and the data. Presumably, this is precisely why these scientists went out of their way to avoid giving them the chance to look.

At the blog Embargo Watch, Ivan Oransky has tracked how the researchers controlled access to their paper. Any journalist that wanted to receive an advance copy was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement before receiving one. That agreement prohibited the outlet from sharing the results with any outside experts before the embargo lifted. In other words, if a press outlet wanted to be one of the first to cover the story, it would have to run the story without having any experts sanity check the paper.

The manipulation didn't end there. The embargo lifted during a live press conference from the researchers, hosted in London in cooperation with the Sustainable Food Trust. The SFT conveniently had a press release prepared; a release claiming that the research was "supported by independent research organization, CRIIGEN." However, this neglected to note that the paper's lead author, Eric Seralini, is on the CRIIGEN board.

Problems with the research

We looked into the study immediately after it began appearing in a variety of outlets. While we didn't have the sort of expertise in toxicology needed to critique some of the details, a few things stood out. First, there appeared to be no dose sensitivity for either Roundup or the level of GMO food provided—they saw the same effects at any of the doses they tested. In addition, the GMO food produced the exact same effects as the Roundup, something the authors didn't provide a reasonable explanation for.

But these problems were only the beginning. As more critical reports began to appear and scientist/bloggers looked at the results, huge issues were made clear. The authors used a strain of rats that is prone to tumors late in life. Every single experimental condition was compared to a single control group of only 10 rats, and some of the experimental groups were actually healthier than the controls. The authors didn't use a standard statistical analysis to determine whether any of the experimental groups had significantly different health problems. And so on.

The experts who weighed in were dismissive. One called the work "a statistical fishing trip" while another said the lack of proper controls meant "these results are of no value." One report quoted a scientist at UC Davis as saying, "There is very little scientific credibility to this paper. The flaws in the test are just incredible to me."

However, by this point, the promotion of the paper already had its desired effect. Both the European Union and French governments were asking their food safety organizations to look into the results, which may have implications for France's attempt to ban GM crops.

Ethical failures all around

If the previous examples we've covered have been about scientists who have gone too far in promoting their work, at least in those cases the goal appears to have been publicity. In this case, the researchers clearly seem to be focused on achieving political ends, namely a ban on the use of genetically modified crops. All indications are that they have performed sloppy science, presented it as indicating something it hasn't, and then knowingly manipulated the press coverage of their work. All in order to ensure the paper had an oversized impact in the public sphere.

In that, apparently, they were unknowingly aided by the peer reviewers who allowed the article to be published. Food and Chemical Toxicology is a small, specialized journal, but there's little reason that its reviewers shouldn't have expected a basic statistical analysis of these results. (We've reached out to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, but haven't received a response at publication time).

But the use of a nondisclosure agreement to limit press coverage should have set off alarm bells within the press. As Ivan Oransky put it in his Embargo Watch report, this threatens to turn reporters into little more than stenographers, copying down only what researchers want them to say, and performing no independent evaluations. Journalist Carl Zimmer, on his blog, calls out the AFP and Reuters (Oransky works for a different group within Reuters) for having agreed to the conditions in the first place. He writes, "This is a rancid, corrupt way to report about science."

In this case, however, the press wasn't reporting about science at all. It was simply being used as a tool for political ends.

Promoted Comments

There are several articles about the French GMO paper on Le Nouvel Observateur magazine.The following article answers some of the concerns and explains the reasons behind some of the choices made:

1) The number of rats, 200 rats in 10 groups of 20 rats each, is strictly identical to the numbers chosen in Monsanto's own 90 day study, except that the CRIIGEN studied many more parameters than Monsanto. If this number was a real problem, then every single Monsanto GMO should be taken off the market immediately, because it's on the basis of similar numbers that these GMOs were authorized.

/sigh, no you design the trail according to the number of parameters you want to test and de-convolute. If you're doing proper ANOVA more parameters means a lot more animals. Seriously, there's experiment design software out there to help you do this because it can be rather complicated.

Chimel31 wrote:

2) Same for the type of rats, which are used worldwide for toxicology studies, and have the advantage of being very uniform (profile, weight) and biologically and physically stable. These rats are prone to developing tumors indeed, but there were about twice more tumors with the rats eating GM corn than with the witness group.

Twice the number means nothing without proper stats to determine whether this was significant. That's it. Really. End of story. Given the fact these rats are prone to tumours and were kept well into old age the background noise is going to be pain. This could have been mitigated by choosing a different strain or, indeed, a different species.

Chimel31 wrote:

Several more concerns were answered.The raw and processed data of the study will be made public over the next months, so data can be reprocessed according to whatever statistics methods you choose.

Really not good enough. Bad enough when companies sit on data, it's equally reprehensible when supposedly independent research groups do it. All the papers I ever published had raw data, freely accessible from day one, anything less would be poor science indeed.

The rest of what you say is rather irrelevant or, indeed, points to the author's bias. I agree Monsanto are to be condemned for the way they handle science too, but it has no bearing on this paper, or the actions of it's authors, which are questionable at best.

26 posts | registered Jul 27, 2010

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I'm not sure if this is trolling or not, but I'll bite. Where are you getting this nonsense? You can certainly eat the corn right off the stalk if you want, and you'll live to tell the tale, without an exploded stomach. Not that this variety of corn will be sold to backyard gardeners or truck farmers.

Two possible followup topics for Ars science writers:

(1) The facts about GMO food, unfiltered through unaccountable websites

(2) The way scientific information transforms itself as it passes through advocacy groups, and advocacy group-sponsored "research"

@AdamM "The methodology not the financing behind a study is what invalidates it. Assuming the methodology and process is made public it doesn't matter who funds it assuming it checks out."

Logically you'd think this to be true. And I think for the most part it is. There are however studies of studies that attempt to remove all other factors besides the funding and they still come up with some bias. There's no real equivalent to double blind in scientific research of this sort. So perhaps the acceptance of funding correlates with the tendentiousness of the researcher or something. Scientists are, after all, humans.

And what, pray tell, do you think selective breeding and cross-polination do, you ignoramus? That's right, modifying an organism at the genetic level.

Those two things are, in fact, exactly the same. The outcome is identical. There's no inexplicable taint of evil as folks like to ominously imply without bothering to explain what exactly the difference would be, there is only an organism with a certain genome. If you think the process by which that genome came to be is icky, that is entirely your problem.

To be fair, they're not exactly the same. Breeding can do a tiny subset of what GM techniques can do. GM techniques allows the introduction of genes from totally unrelated organisms, while breeding organisms have to be pretty closely related. And eventually, when we figure out how to design artifical functional proteins as opposed to the current copy-paste methods, GM techniques will allow us to introduce those too. Even more flexible will be the use of proteins using amino-acids outside of the standard repertoire of 20, aka alloproteins.

Granted, but that just expands the pool of raw material you have to work with. You're still shaping the genome to suit your goals. DNA is DNA; it makes no difference whether a gene is from a related plant, a bacterium, or an octopus that glows in the dark, what matters is what it does once introduced into the target genome.

igor.levicki wrote:

Deamon wrote:

Those two things are, in fact, exactly the same. The outcome is identical. There's no inexplicable taint of evil as folks like to ominously imply without bothering to explain what exactly the difference would be, there is only an organism with a certain genome. If you think the process by which that genome came to be is icky, that is entirely your problem.

Except that direct genetic engineering allows for much more dangerous changes than the natural selection.

You cannot because the organisms are too different top produce viable offspring. That is it, end of list. There is no "good reason", Mother Nature didn't go "hmmm, need to keep these genes separate, better put them in separate species that can't crossbreed". Your argument amounts to "it can't happen in nature, so it should never be done."

And it's unnatural selection, not natural. Modern food crops are the result of artificial processes and are would be competed out of existence in a natural environment. They are no more natural than your anti-freeze strawberries (which as far I can tell were never actually made and are brought up only as an appeal to emotion by the "ewww, icky!" crowd). I was wrong. There's still no reason to assume that a gene from a fish is more dangerous than one from another plant, though. Would you still say it's unnatural and dangerous if the same gene showed up in a strawberry plant through random mutation?

They have "been tested" over centuries because people started growing and eating them. You know, exactly what people are doing with GM crops now. And [citation needed] on the 90 days thing, I find that highly unlikely. And what is "pro-GMO study" supposed to mean? A scientific study is for uncovering facts, not pushing an agenda (unlike the subject of the article). Stop laughing, I said scientific for a reason.

igor.levicki wrote:

Someone asked "how is it that so many intelligent people are anti-GMO?" -- maybe because they are intelligent and maybe because only ignorant people take everything for granted?

Read this article and maybe you will start understanding our concerns.

No, it is because, all too often, intelligence becomes nothing more than a means to be wrong with confidence. Smart people are very good at cherrypicking facts that confirm their existing biases.

And that article is just disgusting. The author clearly has no clue on actual biology. His notions of species sounds more like it's from a creationist's handbook, like the "created kinds" that were made by God separately and should forever remain separate.

Why did the journal publish this paper? My inner cynic suspects a ham-fisted attempt to raise its profile and impact factor. How many times do you think this paper is going to be sited in the slew of debunkings we'll no doubt see?

Pretty shoddy I think. It too me all of 5 minutes to reach that conclusion when I got my hands on the full paper. Damn near incomprehensible, and purposefully so I think.

Wether you are for or againt it, GMO stuff needs to be clearly labeled, and biotech companies are spending millions to prevent it. What do they have to hide? Why not let people choose?There is a saying "A hat is burining on a thief" in russian. If they have nothing to hide, why spend millions bribing .gov and preventing transgene food from being clearly labeled?

And you're SURPRISED at this? After the blatant manipulation of science, scientific investigation, research methodology and peer review of Global Warming Theory, a new standard has been set for the political manipulation of science for the benefit of a few and the detriment of many. Allowing governments to reward and penalize researchers based on their findings by cutting off research funds for results they don't find 'convenient' is criminal, but the willing lapdogs of the media just report the accepted and approved results. We all lose in the long run unless this is turned around.

Please excuse my ignorance, but there is one pertinent question about research manipulation: These researchers claim that there is no toxicity-related GMO study than went beyond 90 days, knowing that these GMOs are in everyday food for everyday consumption, i.e, are regular food, and not addtitives or other "drugs". Can anyone please confirm this?.

There have been a lot of long term studies, event on multiple generation. One meta-analysis is called "Assessment of the health impact of GM plant diets in long-term and multigenerational animal feeding trials: A literature review"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22155268

"a release claiming that the research was "supported by independent research organization, CRIIGEN." However, this neglected to note that the paper's lead author, Eric Seralini, is on the CRIIGEN board."

Furthermore, CRIIGEN is not an "independant research organization"; it is a voluntary association whose explicit purpose is to work against GMO. One may check their legal status on their website (3rd Article) (hmm, it is more carefully worded in English than in the original French) or just read anything they have ever written on the matter. Being strongly against no matter what is I think no more neutral than earning money by selling GMOs.

When you are a part of and publish to the post MTv generation what exactly does anyone expect? As a bunch of cows that all of you know you are, just moo along and get in that truck going to the slaughter house (ahem, green pastures).

Wether you are for or againt it, GMO stuff needs to be clearly labeled, and biotech companies are spending millions to prevent it. What do they have to hide? Why not let people choose?There is a saying "A hat is burining on a thief" in russian. If they have nothing to hide, why spend millions bribing .gov and preventing transgene food from being clearly labeled?

I'm all for labelling, being open is the best policy. However, most people calling for labelling aren't asking for openness they're trying to flag the food up as "different" and I can't see how this is intended to be anything other than a scare tactic. I suspect this is why biotechs get nervous about forced labelling.

Personally, I think biotech should take the short term hit for long term gain... but I don't have a financial interest so I suppose that's easy for me to say. Plus history isn't exactly going to fill biotech with confidence; I already know of one product forced off the shelves in the UK because it was GM. It was selling fine until a media storm got everyone panicked about franken-tomatoes:

The reason for the questionable nature of John Timmer's article as well as his motivations stem from the fact that this same level of critical observation is not found when pro-GMO studies are released, studies sponsored by Monsanto. This French study is the first GMO study not sponsored by Monsanto and so it’s the first to not have a pro-Monsanto/pro-GMO entity funding it.

That statement completely fails to address the many and deep scientific failings of the French study. This study is garbage, and the researchers actions indicate that they were conscious of that fact. If they had any confidence at all in their findings, they wouldn't have tried this vile NDA trick.

Quote:

When Monsanto had studies released that it funded you did not find cries of “Conflict of interest” from John Timmer and others and that raises the questions “WHY?”. And why did John and his fellow journalists conveniently leave out the fact that Monsanto’s studies have all been short term, 90 days or less? Does anyone here think that 90 days is a sufficient time to proper study the long term effects of genetic level modification of food consumed by humans? We’re not talking about cross pollination but the genetic level manipulation of a major food product.

That's not relevant to the subject matter of this article, and it's also not germane to the deep and obvious problems with the study.

Quote:

Also at question here is the misleading so called analysis of the study by those finding fault with it. For example, David Spiegelhalter of the University of Cambridge tried to cast doubt on the accuracy of the study by highlighting that “The study’s untreated control arm comprised only 10 rats of each sex, most of which got tumors”. His statement completely ignores the fact that the rats, whether they developed tumors or did NOT develop tumors were statistically far more likely to die prematurely if they were exposed to Monsanto products; the figures do not lie.

The size of the study is far too small to establish statistical significance. It's typical in rat studies for the control arm to be several times the size of the experimental arm... not a mere 10%. The other fact that you conveniently ignore is that there is no dose-response relationship in their data. That is damning; everything has such a relationship. They may not realize that, seeing as how they included a homeopath (i.e. a professional con artist) on their team.

So, he starts by saying he's not qualified to comment on the topic. Then proceeds to cite only mainstream media outlets to shore up the straw man argument at the center of the article.

This article is about the attempt of the researchers to manipulate media coverage in order to delay negative coverage of their badly done study.

Quote:

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that when a company splices a pesticide into the DNA of food, that you end up eating pesticides. A + B = B + A. Yet Timmer runs right up to the mic to tell us that our common sense is on the fritz and we should support GMOs.

This study wasn't of Bt corn, it was of Roundup Ready corn. That means corn that has been modified such that it is resistant to Roundup, not that produced Roundup (or Bt toxin) itself.

One other thing to note re Bt corn is that Bt spraying is approved for organic crops under the strictest certification regimes.

Quote:

I say "so what" if they used rats that are prone to tumors. All of the industries that Timmer reports favorably on use the same kind of scientific manipulations to achieve their ends. We all know this. The study attacked in this article is no less valid than the FDA-requred, first-part study roulette presented by industry to support their claims of safety.

I've read all the comments on this thread... and the focus is on the recent French Study, yet no one brings up the issue of well done studies in which the methodology is sound... but the results are cooked in summary and conclusion.

Like the one for the approval of Aspartame by the FDA? Their own scientists warned it was dangerously unsafe... eventually triggering a criminal investigation. The lead investigators took jobs in the industry and the investigation was dropped. [excerpts from study below]

Also, what about Dr. Árpád Pusztai. He was tasked with coming up with protocols and methodology to be used for testing GMO for safety in Europe. He was alarmed by what he discovered, and reported the results to his superiors... who promptly shut the research down, and told him not to discuss it... when his conscience led him to refuse, he was fired from a position he had held for 30 years. Eventually, The Lancet went ahead and published the research, to the dismay of pro-GMO folks.

Google his name... you'll find all kinds of damning evidence of GMO's being unsafe.

I will say, and you can accuse me a wearing a tinfoil hat... that if this study is a poor as is being posited, it has to make me wonder if it wasn't done to discredit the anti-gmo folks.

GMO is dangerous... and there's plenty of data out there that would lead any one of decent intelligence to arrive at that same conclusion. But it is a fact, that you are unlikely to find something you've made a decision not to find.

Excerpts from the aspartame study, audited by the FDA (...and STILL allowed approval):

Aspartame apparently resuscitates dead mice. From that study...

"Animal number A23LM was alive at week 88, dead from week 92 through week 104, alive at week 108, and dead at week 112.

Records indicated that penicillin was administered to four rats beginning on May 16, 1973, and continuing daily through May 28, 1973. This third occurrence of infectious disease and penicillin administration was not reported in the sub-mission to FDA.

Records indicate that a tissue mass measuring 1.5 x 1.0 cm was excised from animal B3HF on 2/12/72, and that a "skin incision over mass" was performed on animals C22LM and G25LM on Feb. 10, 1972. (sometimes called a "growth" could be a tumor?)

Dr. Charles H. Frith, D.V.M., Ph.D., Directory, Pathology Services, NCTR, examined slides for a total of 150 animals, or about 42 percent of the animals on study. He noted the following discrepancies:

a. The reporting of a mass (by Searle) as missing which was actually present (animal M1LF.)

b. The finding of a polyp of the uterus which was not diagnosed by Searle (animal K9MF). The finding of this additional uterine polyp by Dr. Frith increases the incidence in the midi dose to 5 of 34. (15 percent.) (15% incidence of abnormal growths? Nothing wrong here, right?)

c. The finding of ovarian neoplasms in animals H19CF, H19C, and H7HF, and the finding of diffuse hyperplasia in animal D29CF, which were not diagnosed by Searle.

d. The finding of additional inconsistencies in 21 animals.

6) No microscopic worksheets or other "raw data" relating to microscopic pathology could be found for this study.

7) A mammary tumor found in animal F27CF was described as a papillary cystadenoma on the pathology summary sheet, (page 105, Vol. II of the submission) and as an adenocarcinoma on summary table 12 (p. 95, Vol. I of the submission).

8) In several instances the histopathology technician made notes at the bottom of the gross pathology sheet to indicate that certain organs were not present in the bottle of fixative (and were therefore not available for sectioning. WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM, DON'T YOU?). Yet, in three of these instances (animals A4CM, K23CF, and J3CM) a diagnosis appears in the submission to FDA."

1) What possible "good reason?" The fish and plant are too genetically distant to produce viable offspring. That's a good explanation, but it doesn't stand up as a reason in the ethical sense. 2) North Atlantic cod also make antifreeze proteins, and the Type III AFPs discussed in this study are very similar to the Type I AFPs found in winter flounder (considered by you disgusting fish-eaters to be delicious, but I'll stick to chicken). Does eating cod or flounder kill people? Make them sick? Maybe if they're allergic to fish somehow or it's got salmonella, but not because of antifreeze proteins.

I've read all the comments on this thread... and the focus is on the recent French Study, yet no one brings up the issue of well done studies in which the methodology is sound... but the results are cooked in summary and conclusion.

Like the one for the approval of Aspartame by the FDA? Their own scientists warned it was dangerously unsafe... eventually triggering a criminal investigation. The lead investigators took jobs in the industry and the investigation was dropped. [excerpts from study below]

Also, what about Dr. Árpád Pusztai. He was tasked with coming up with protocols and methodology to be used for testing GMO for safety in Europe. He was alarmed by what he discovered, and reported the results to his superiors... who promptly shut the research down, and told him not to discuss it... when his conscience led him to refuse, he was fired from a position he had held for 30 years. Eventually, The Lancet went ahead and published the research, to the dismay of pro-GMO folks.

Google his name... you'll find all kinds of damning evidence of GMO's being unsafe.

I will say, and you can accuse me a wearing a tinfoil hat... that if this study is a poor as is being posited, it has to make me wonder if it wasn't done to discredit the anti-gmo folks.

GMO is dangerous... and there's plenty of data out there that would lead any one of decent intelligence to arrive at that same conclusion. But it is a fact, that you are unlikely to find something you've made a decision not to find.

Excerpts from the aspartame study, audited by the FDA (...and STILL allowed approval):

Aspartame apparently resuscitates dead mice. From that study...

"Animal number A23LM was alive at week 88, dead from week 92 through week 104, alive at week 108, and dead at week 112.

Records indicated that penicillin was administered to four rats beginning on May 16, 1973, and continuing daily through May 28, 1973. This third occurrence of infectious disease and penicillin administration was not reported in the sub-mission to FDA.

Records indicate that a tissue mass measuring 1.5 x 1.0 cm was excised from animal B3HF on 2/12/72, and that a "skin incision over mass" was performed on animals C22LM and G25LM on Feb. 10, 1972. (sometimes called a "growth" could be a tumor?)

Dr. Charles H. Frith, D.V.M., Ph.D., Directory, Pathology Services, NCTR, examined slides for a total of 150 animals, or about 42 percent of the animals on study. He noted the following discrepancies:

a. The reporting of a mass (by Searle) as missing which was actually present (animal M1LF.)

b. The finding of a polyp of the uterus which was not diagnosed by Searle (animal K9MF). The finding of this additional uterine polyp by Dr. Frith increases the incidence in the midi dose to 5 of 34. (15 percent.) (15% incidence of abnormal growths? Nothing wrong here, right?)

c. The finding of ovarian neoplasms in animals H19CF, H19C, and H7HF, and the finding of diffuse hyperplasia in animal D29CF, which were not diagnosed by Searle.

d. The finding of additional inconsistencies in 21 animals.

6) No microscopic worksheets or other "raw data" relating to microscopic pathology could be found for this study.

7) A mammary tumor found in animal F27CF was described as a papillary cystadenoma on the pathology summary sheet, (page 105, Vol. II of the submission) and as an adenocarcinoma on summary table 12 (p. 95, Vol. I of the submission).

8) In several instances the histopathology technician made notes at the bottom of the gross pathology sheet to indicate that certain organs were not present in the bottle of fixative (and were therefore not available for sectioning. WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM, DON'T YOU?). Yet, in three of these instances (animals A4CM, K23CF, and J3CM) a diagnosis appears in the submission to FDA."

Pretty much this ++.Its a known fact that many governement institutions today are in bed with megacorporations, and biotech and FDA being the worst of the bunch. If you google around there is an incredible amount of evidence to dangers of GMO, but ofcourse none of it will be in the "scientific msm" because scientific msm is basically owned by special interest, today, the corruption between these circles is complete, in all big industries.From the customer point of view i want all the GMO shit clearly labeled so i can personally avoid it, and that includes even if it contains tiny bits of GMO shit (such as HFCS that is present in almost everything in America). Things are a bit better in EU (and their food in general tastes much better and has less chemical addons), but the trend is sickening as each year i travel to EU there are more and more additives in products (although still better than US).Its sickening that US has outlawed all imports of products that contain raw milk (such as many french cheeses that people have consumed for centuries with no problems), yet products that have half of chemical elements table in them are somehow ok. As i said, corruption is now complete.

This article is complete and utter corporate propaganda. John Timmer is a corporate whore. It's not complicated, the information in this article is simply all a lie. All these morons on here writing about how it's a great article, etc, are a joke. They could be legitimate replies but most likely at least some originate from a corporate PR firm. GMO foods are absolutely NOT GOOD FOR YOU AT ALL!!! ingesting pesticides. YES, WHAT A GOOD IDEA YOU BRAINDEAD FOOLS! There are countless studies showing how GMO foods are horrible!

Wether you are for or againt it, GMO stuff needs to be clearly labeled, and biotech companies are spending millions to prevent it. What do they have to hide? Why not let people choose?There is a saying "A hat is burining on a thief" in russian. If they have nothing to hide, why spend millions bribing .gov and preventing transgene food from being clearly labeled?

I'm sorry, but that's a stupid argument. People have irrational fears of things all the time and highlighting something a lot of people are irrational about is not always a good idea. Think of the proposals to label cell phones with the level of radio waves you can expect to receive a few inches from your head. There is zero reason to think that this electromagnetic radiation does anything to you and plenty of good reasons to think it does nothing, but huge numbers of people are convinced that they're allergic to Wi-Fi and that cell phones cause cancer. The argument about "labeling" GMO food sounds like the idea of mandating cell phones label their by how much EF you get from holding it. It's a label that means absolutely nothing in scientific terms but plays directly into people's irrational fears. A similar baseless scare turns people away from vaccinations, with a demonstrably harmful effect on the population at large through the loss of herd immunity.There can be good arguments for labeling foods, but the "You have nothing to fear if it's really safe!" line completely ignores the existing levels of crazy bullshit floating around, as demonstrated in this very thread where people confuse Roundup Ready corn for Bt corn and worry about it rotting their guts if eaten fresh.

Thats right, that one paragraph was not anti-GMO. It was however detaling the problem with the source for GMO information. AS far as why not use it if its great? You are "assuming" its great and you know how the saying goes about "assuming".

The government grants the monopoly because Monsanto pasy damn good money for it and if I was paying that kind of omeny I woudl also expect exclusivity. That said, its not the governments position to dictate to Americans what they can and can not grow, especially food and yet tahts exactly where we are going with thsi kind of insanity and the entire way down that path people like you have a "So what" attitude about it.

You need to work on picking up on hypotheticals. When people use the word "assume" they are talking hypothetically. My post there was about the fact there is no reason for us to become Luddites just because Monsanto has a monopoly given, hypothetically speaking, the fact that GMO is fine. It was not making a claim whether GMO is fine or not.

Ok, while the scientific community goes back and forth on this issue, here is what Joe public wants. Unless GMO crops have had long term safety studies done, we don't want them. And at the very least, these foods should be labled.

Why should we be trusting a company whose representative,Phil Angell, made this comment to the NY times.''Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food,'' he said. ''Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A.'s job.''

Welcome to the world of "may have been processed on machinery that handled peanuts." The cost of sorting out labeling in today's food market of frozen dinners will be high enough that the labeling will be essentially pointless. It will be a given. Let those who want to stand out, label themselves organic or non-gmo.

So do you have any evidence that GMOs don't harm people that you think GMO labelling is unnecessary or even dangerous? Because I have been following the debate for years, and most independent studies I've seen do report a similar increase in tumors and other anomalies. They are all too rare though, no thanks to Monsanto, so I'd rather see more studies to prove if yes or no, GMOs are dangerous. As of now, I'd say we don't have enough independent studies to prove one way or the other with absolute certainty. We didn't even have a single meaningful long term study until this one. If the statistics methods used are not the same as other studies, did the French scientists use wrong statistics? Can't we process the raw data using the statistics methods you expect? Just asking, as I don't know anything about this area.

The embargo on GMOs in Europe is also not just based on human health, but also on the fact that GM corn will cross-pollinate non-GM up to 600 feet away, and as such, most indigenous Mexican corn (hundreds of varieties) is now irremediably polluted with Monsanto R/R or Bt genes, even though growing GM corn was (still is?) not authorized in Mexico. I'd hate to see the same thing happen in Europe.

So do you have any evidence that GMOs don't harm people that you think GMO labelling is unnecessary or even dangerous? Because I have been following the debate for years, and most independent studies I've seen do report a similar increase in tumors and other anomalies.

I haven't been following this for years, so links to these independent studies would be appreciated.

I did a quick scan of all the posters registered in the last few days. All but one were anti-GMO. If an controversial article is linked to on one of the news aggregaters, you will get crank trolling from outsiders.

GM crops have been around for almost two decades. If they had heath effects (like allergies or illness), people would be cured by switching to organic food diets. We have NOT seen that happen. That is real world, long term testing.

I don't know if these studies are available online, I read about them in several books, such as the French book The World According to Monsanto, the two books Seeds of Deception/Destruction, a couple other books about dietetics, and countless articles, including from the ag community, who have their own questions and offer their own testimony, for instance that R/R corn yield was great in the first years, but not so much in recent years, because weeds have adapted, or Bt corn that seems to also have lower yields, presumably because every single cell produces Bt instead of dedicating their resources to building the corn seeds. There is absolutely zero studies in this field (no pun intended), we need them too, but we don't get them because it would contradict the "we need GMOs to feed the world of 9 billion people in 2050" motto of Monsanto and other biotechnology firms.

The most important independent health study about GMOs was the first one done in Scotland by this doctor that had been consequently fired for publishing it because of pressure from Monsanto. He was either reinstated or received full apologies afterwards, but lost his reputation nevertheless. There hasn't been any studies for years following the threats to scientists, magazines and other organizations.

You can also check Monsanto's own studies that they gave to the FDA/USDA/EPA to get approval for their products (since these agencies didn't conduct any study at the beginning but relied on Monsanto's results). Some of these studies do show a lot of irregularities, such as omitting to include dead animals in the results, or plain lax or incompetent behavior (the mention of the pregnant rats being perfectly healthy, pregnant male rats that is). The government agencies checked only the studies results, but the raw data had been leaked some years ago, so people got a chance to look at them.

I don't know if these studies are available online, I read about them in several books, such as the French book The World According to Monsanto, the two books Seeds of Deception/Destruction, a couple other books about dietetics, and countless articles, including from the ag community, who have their own questions and offer their own testimony, for instance that R/R corn yield was great in the first years, but not so much in recent years, because weeds have adapted, or Bt corn that seems to also have lower yields, presumably because every single cell produces Bt instead of dedicating their resources to building the corn seeds. There is absolutely zero studies in this field (no pun intended), we need them too, but we don't get them because it would contradict the "we need GMOs to feed the world of 9 billion people in 2050" motto of Monsanto and other biotechnology firms.

The most important independent health study about GMOs was the first one done in Scotland by this doctor that had been consequently fired for publishing it because of pressure from Monsanto. He was either reinstated or received full apologies afterwards, but lost his reputation nevertheless. There hasn't been any studies for years following the threats to scientists, magazines and other organizations.

You can also check Monsanto's own studies that they gave to the FDA/USDA/EPA to get approval for their products (since these agencies didn't conduct any study at the beginning but relied on Monsanto's results). Some of these studies do show a lot of irregularities, such as omitting to include dead animals in the results, or plain lax or incompetent behavior (the mention of the pregnant rats being perfectly healthy, pregnant male rats that is). The government agencies checked only the studies results, but the raw data had been leaked some years ago, so people got a chance to look at them.

Okay... so mostly conspiracy theory and not so much in the way of peer reviewed science because of the evil Monsanto.

FYI this was posted above in case you missed it:

PTranouez wrote:

There have been a lot of long term studies, event on multiple generation. One meta-analysis is called "Assessment of the health impact of GM plant diets in long-term and multigenerational animal feeding trials: A literature review"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22155268

I have this funny feeling that if one bothered to look that there would be other NIH studies on the safety of GMO crops. Of course if these affirm the safety of GMO foods, then it must be because of a agribusiness conspiracy and not at all based in science. Because any scientific evidence that GMO crops are safe for consumption and the lack of scientific evidence that they are unsafe must be because of a conspiracy.

I've read all the comments on this thread... and the focus is on the recent French Study, yet no one brings up

(Gish gallop deleted)

Yes, many commenters have indeed managed to remain admirably on topic--this is an article on a specific study, and the manner in which the authors manipulated the media to give an extraordinarily poor study national press, not a general debate on the merits of GMO foods.

I have this funny feeling that if one bothered to look that there would be other NIH studies on the safety of GMO crops.

Well it's not a NIH study to start with, but a British one.Which is good, because the independence of the NIH as one of the 4 agencies supposedly in charge of regulating GMOs is doubtful, with their constant revolving door policy. Hell, even a U.S. VP was a GM CEO, not just in these agencies.

The study you linked is just a statistical study of studies whose independence I have no way of knowing. For all I know, since most studies about GMOs are founded by Monsanto, all these studies could be too.

It would be great to see an answer from that French team about all these criticisms.

From the customer point of view i want all the GMO shit clearly labeled so i can personally avoid it, and that includes even if it contains tiny bits of GMO shit (such as HFCS that is present in almost everything in America).

It is already simple enough to avoid GMO. Rightly or wrongly, some people are afraid of GMO, so the absence of GMO is a selling point. So food that does not contain GMO is always prominently labeled as such. Therefore you can safely assume that if a food doesn't say "Contains no GMO" or "USDA Organic" on the label, it has GMO.

Granted, but that just expands the pool of raw material you have to work with. You're still shaping the genome to suit your goals. DNA is DNA; it makes no difference whether a gene is from a related plant, a bacterium, or an octopus that glows in the dark, what matters is what it does once introduced into the target genome.

The problem is that you don't know what side effects will such modification cause in future generations of the same and totally different species which interact with it because such modification was never available in nature to begin with.

When it comes to GMO some of you people are so arrogant and confident as if the whole meaning of every possible genome on the planet was decoded and mapped out and as if making new species by combining whatever comes to mind is a game where caution and consideration for long term effects on eco-system can be safely ignored. This is not some strategy game on your computer where you can load your last save if you fuck up.

What kind of attitude is "we don't have to prove it is safe, we should just let it out of the lab"?

It reeks of arrogance, selfishness, and it is governed by corporate greed for profit and desire for control and power.

Deamon wrote:

Mother Nature didn't go "hmmm, need to keep these genes separate, better put them in separate species that can't crossbreed". Your argument amounts to "it can't happen in nature, so it should never be done."

And your argument is "regardless of what is possible in nature if we can make it happen lets do it for the sake of science"?

Is that so you can prove human superiority? Beat your chest and say "we can do anything we want"? Or maybe it is some other reason but I am pretty sure you are not ending world hunger with that shit.

Are you telling me that there is no reason for species to be separate? At all? That they have randomly developed as they are now? Or maybe you don't have a good answer to that question? If you don't, why are you trying to change anything before understanding it fully? That is what I am trying to understand.

Deamon wrote:

There's still no reason to assume that a gene from a fish is more dangerous than one from another plant, though. Would you still say it's unnatural and dangerous if the same gene showed up in a strawberry plant through random mutation?

There is no proof that it isn't more dangerous. Since I am not the one making it but I am asked to consume it as if it were natural product, the burden of proof should be on those who make it, no?

You are only interested in immediate effects such as toxicity -- if it doesn't kill you or make you sick it must be good, right? I am sorry, but I totally don't agree with that. There is a much wider picture out there. What happens if that gene gets transferred to other plants by cross-polination in successive generations? What if it mutates and transfers to say common weed (or any other plant whose growth is hard to control) and in doing so becomes toxic for say domestic bee? Can you imagine the consequences? Can you prove it cannot happen?

Deamon wrote:

And what is "pro-GMO study" supposed to mean?

A study paid by Monsanto? The one that says GMO is safe?

Deamon wrote:

A scientific study is for uncovering facts, not pushing an agenda (unlike the subject of the article).

Pro-something study means that it was manipulated exactly like this one, only it happens much more often and it is never reported on in this fashion.

Deamon wrote:

No, it is because, all too often, intelligence becomes nothing more than a means to be wrong with confidence. Smart people are very good at cherrypicking facts that confirm their existing biases.

I think you got it all wrong. Intelligent people are those who are more aware of how little they know -- intelligent person can never be as confident as an ignorant one (source).

Deamon wrote:

His notions of species sounds more like it's from a creationist's handbook, like the "created kinds" that were made by God separately and should forever remain separate.

It is not important who or what made them that way. It is important to understand why before trying to change it.

I totally distrust Monsanto, and also see way too many similarities between GM foods, tobacco, thalidomide and many other pharmaceuticals.

Basically, I think GM foods need a lot more testing, regulation and oversight.

There are good reasons to genetically modify foods (and other plants). Drought resistance is one of them. Engineering plants to be good sources of biofuel, or carbon sinks are others. But doing it to fight any sort of organism (bacterial, microbial or insectoid) will only lead to a evolutionary arms race, which we will likely lose and cause substantial collateral damage along the way.

However, the people behind this research clearly had an agenda. They knew what they wanted to prove before they did any research, and stacked the experiements to prove exactly that. Then they ensured that their "research" couldn't possibly be peer approved before hitting the media. That's a level of dishonesty way beyond cherry picking.

The last time the work of Seralini et al was reviewed by an independent arbiter, the arbiter was French Scientific Committee of the High Council of Biotechnologies. The question was then as it is now, the safety of Monsanto’s GM corn.

Seralini et al’s contribution was in a paper with lead author J. Spiroux de Vendômois et al 2009. Unlike Seralini et al 2012 this JSV et al 2009 did not involve their own feeding trials, rather it was a statistical re-analysis of Monsanto’s data. The scientific committee’s review of both JSV et al 2009 and Monsanto’s feeding trial found “no admissible scientific element likely to ascribe any haematological, hepatic or renal toxicity to the three reanalysed GMOs.” However it did make strong and critical findings against the safety trials and analysis used by Monsanto. These findings show that the feeding trials used by Monsanto to argue the safety of their GM foods are critically flawed:

“... the protocol [and] the statistical analysis traditionally used by a number of petitioners, including Monsanto, show certain weaknesses that make it impossible to conclude with sufficient certainty that there are no health and environmental risks associated with GMOs. These weaknesses are now largely accepted outside the HCB”

But the asymmetry of critical review sees Seralini rigorously critiqued and prematurely condemned, while the critically flawed feeding trials and analysis of Monsanto (the trials which put GMO on our tables) go unaddressed by the industry.http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/acnfp9612a2